Remove Write Protection On USB Pen Drive or Memory Card or iPod

Posted by Rohit in how to fix 

21

Dec

Trouble:

In the past we had received so many problems from the readers who have a problem in copying files on their USB portable devices like pen drives, memory card and iPod etc.

usb-drive-write-protected

According to the mails we had received about this problem, people have seen the following errors when their thumbs drives, memory card etc becomes write protected.

  • Cannot copy files and folders, drive is write protected
  • Cannot format the drive, drive is write protected
  • The disk is write protected
  • Remove write protection or use another disk
  • Media is write protected

Some times people say that suddenly their drive become write protected and they are not able to delete any files and folder on the drive and also not able to copy new files and folder to USB portable drive.

Let’s see how can you remove write protection on your portable devices like pen drives, memory cards, iPod and other USB mass storage devices.

Fix:

Write Protection on any portable USB Device can be applied by the physical lock provided on the card adjuster or some times provided on the pen drives, so make sure to make your drive not write protected by moving the lock in right direction.

But even after moving the physical lock for write protection the problem can happen due to some virus action. This happens when some virus or script which applies the registry hack to make any drive write protect when connected to the computer, In that case follow the procedure below to remove write protection from your pen drive.

1. Open Start Menu >> Run, type regedit and press Enter, this will open the registry editor.

2. Navigate to the following path:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\StorageDevicePolicies

Note: If the registry key StorageDevicePolicies key does not exist, you will need to create it

Download this batch file called add.bat from here, and double click after download the key will be automatically added to registry.

write-protection-registry

3. Double click the key WriteProtect in the right pane and set the value to 0 in the Value Data Box and press OK button

disable-write-protection

4. Exit Registry, restart your computer and then again re-connect your USB pen drive on your computer. That is it, done.

In case you still find an issue, please leave a comment below.

Updated on 28th May 2009

After a lot of user comments telling that the above method does not work for them, we tell you another method which you can follow to solve the “Pen Drive is Write Protected” problem.

If the above method does not work for you, follow the below steps:

1. Copy all the important data from this drive to your computer because this method will format the drive and erase all the data on the pen drive.

2. Now download the Apacer Formatting Utility, Unzip this utility to a folder. Keep your pen drive plugged in, and double click on the Start.bat file in the folder where you unzipped the above utility. This will start formatting your pen drive, wait till the formatting completes and the LED on your pen drive stops blinking. Remove your pen drive after than and plug it in again.

The above two steps will solve the problem. If you still face the problem, follow the below steps:

1. Goto Start > Run, type cmd and press enter, this will open command prompt.

2. Type the following command on the command prompt replacing X with the drive letter of your pen drive.

CHKDSK X: /F

The above two methods will help you fix the problem.

Note: For all those who are out of luck in fixing the problem with their portable drives, I would suggest you to get your drives checked or replaced by the manufacturer to fix it for you

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Author + Admin: Rohit Khurana
Software Engineer by profession. I am a part time tech blogger and believe in blogging because I enjoy writing on technology. I also write about Cars and Bikes at www.carblogindia.com. You can catch me on twitter @rohit_khurana. Get in touch with me at RohitKhurana.in.

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87 Users Commented In This Post

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Deyaa Addeen Fahmy Shedeed says, December 22nd, 2008   

There is no StorageDevicePolicies key.
Do I create it ? and then create subkey named WriteProtect ?
Waiting your reply .
thanks alots.

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abhishek says, December 22nd, 2008   

@Deyaa Addeen Fahmy Shedeed – Yes, if it does not exist you will need to create it, I have updated the article also on how can you create it simply. read the step 2 again

thanks for pointing out. :)

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Rikas says, December 23rd, 2008   

I could not find write protecter in right side pane. still i have the problem.please help!

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Simrandeep Singh says, December 24th, 2008   

I’ve downloaded the batch file and added to registry and set the value to 0 also but problem is still not solved. My pen drive don’t have any write protection button, still it is showing this error.

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sajith says, December 25th, 2008   

thanx…. so very… much….

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princess says, January 1st, 2009   

ok im haveing trouble with step 2 i add it and its not working or opening for me plz help

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Badri says, January 2nd, 2009   

After following your procedure, i am still facing this problem. Plz Help.

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Misschiff says, January 2nd, 2009   

I have done this procedure too and it has had no effect. I also modified the other control sets ie Control Set 1 Control Set 2 etc so that all backups were modified using the same criteria. Still not working.

I was able to add files for a few seconds at one point (before) editing the registry) and then it stopped. In fact this worked effortlessly on the first computer I plugged it in to, but not on the second computer. I figured it was computer specific and a windows bug or something.

I would really love to know the solution

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Randy says, January 3rd, 2009   

Is there another step for Vista? Tried but the key is not being added…

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Mark says, January 4th, 2009   

Hi, I was having this problem with an 8GB SDHC card, the tab was in the UNLOCK position, but it never sat quite right in the card reader (when fully inserted it was at a bit of an angle), and today it decided to give me WRITE-PROTECT errors when trying to delete some files.
So the options were either buying a new card reader or cracking open this one for a ‘mechanical’ fix.
Luckily I found your page here. It made sense that there would be a way to disable the lock/unlock check in RegEdit.
So your method worked for me, using my SDHCcard, card reader with a bad write-protection detection switch, and WinXP SP2.
Just thought I’d add this comment after seeing so many comments on it not working out for them.

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vishal says, January 5th, 2009   

Oh i m very glad that i found solution from you and i will try it………
Thank you very very much……..

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fernando says, January 7th, 2009   

I have a problem. is the same nothing has changed after I did the whole procedure step by step and I rechecked and the value is still at 0 so does not look like that has anything to do with the write protection on the pen drive. I think this needs a very strong anti virus or a program made for this kind of virus that can find it and destroy it because I see the files but I cant delete them and my anti virus cant do anything to it.

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sreekanth says, January 8th, 2009   

pen drive icon does not shows in my pc

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Prateek H says, January 9th, 2009   

Thanx a lot! Ur solution did work. It saved ma life!

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Jhay says, January 11th, 2009   

Click this link below to find out how i fixed mine.

http://i79.photobucket.com/albums/j147/chrisjohn203/Memo.jpg

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shafeeq says, January 12th, 2009   

Thanks Rohit,
I tried your solution and restarted my PC to load the changes. But still the problem is not solved. It still says that “Access is Denied.” when i create a file. Is there any Registry Cache or System Cache which i am missing to delete?

I even tried re-installing the USB Driver and removed
INFCACHE.1 from C:\WINDOWS\inf folder. usbstor.pnf file is loading properly and is having current date as last modified date.

Previously it worked by deleting usbstor.inf.diabled and usbstor.pnf.disabled from windows/inf folder. I copied latest usbstor.inf file from c:\i386

Note:There is no Physical Write Protect key for my Pen Drive.

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jack says, January 13th, 2009   

still have the same problem how to do????????????? pls let me knw…. thkx

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matt says, January 13th, 2009   

ok this happen to me when i install deep freeze.. when im installing deep freeze i forgot to remove my pen drive that time…. when im deleting file in my pen drive its always telling me an write protected…. any idea how to remove this error

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nalin says, January 15th, 2009   

i do that but i cant format my 2gb kingston pen it always say write protected

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mahesh says, January 19th, 2009   

i have a problem. is the same nothing has changed after I did the whole procedure step by step and I rechecked and the value is still at 0 so does not look like that has anything to do with the write protection on the pen drive. I think this needs a very strong anti virus or a program made for this kind of virus that can find it and destroy it because I see the files but I cant delete them and my anti virus cant do anything to it. pls send reply as early as possible.. my 3 pendrives are like these same problem.

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sushma says, January 24th, 2009   

hi i tried out ur method but its not working
no button for my pen drive another pendrive is opening in my system but one is not opening pls tell me the solution

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anu says, January 28th, 2009   

i followed ur procedure.but not able to see storage device policies even after installing bat file..is there any other procedure for vista?

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nwad says, January 30th, 2009   

you know what it seems that deep freeze was the start of all my problems with my computer…i really hate it…now i have a problem regarding my flash drive, not able to delete some files…how do i solve this?im really irritated already…i need help asap…tnx!

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Hamza says, February 7th, 2009   

i am having trouble with step 2. i can’t get StorageDevicePolicies key. everytime i press it nothing happens. please help. Answer soon.

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user says, February 8th, 2009   

my flashdrive recently (dont ask how i have no clue) went from fat32 to raw i tried to reformat in device manager….no luck i tried your advice but its still saying that its write protected so i went back and double checked the values in the reg and the changes did hold but it didnt change or remove the write protection im at a loss…any1?i dont care about whats on the drive i just want to be able to use it again plz help!!!

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Carlos Lovizzaro says, February 9th, 2009   

I tried your solution and it does not work.
My iPOD classic 80 gb can go to disk mode but iTunes can not restore it. It seems ok when restoring but iPOD does not come back after iTunes finishes the restore proceedure. The disk start and start and start but not run with the Apple logo stuck on the screen.
And HP Format Tool only shows dvice media write-protected.
Windows does not see the hard drive.
May be you have a another solution.
I will be glad if you have one.
Carlos

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ann says, February 18th, 2009   

hi..when i downladed the add.bat nothing happened to the registry editor…do i have to restart the computer so it would apply?

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ann says, February 18th, 2009   

hi..when i downloaded the add.bat nothing happened to the registry editor it didn’t apply…plz help..

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raghuvaran says, February 20th, 2009   

no storage device policy in my sysrem how to create and also the write protection

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GenobZ says, February 20th, 2009   

Thnx a ton!!
i was looking for this 4m so long..
my external hard disk was locked…
do these kind of things only happen by virus?

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eyez_kills says, February 24th, 2009   

I tried it but it was only good once. When I used it again the usb won’t work anymore. It remains write-protected even though I changed the value 1 into 0. What am I gonna do?

Please help…

Thanks…

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eyez_kills says, February 24th, 2009   

when i scanned my usb it has this RECYCLER thing that is so difficult to delete.

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Kunal says, February 25th, 2009   

Hey dude,

You are the MAN. You actually help me to fix my issue with IPOD. Damn I was pissed off for last 1 month. Everytime I had tried to synchronized my IPOD to my system Itune it failed with write protection with error message 1429.

I looked around to fix the issue on MAC forum but all the solution provided there was of no use.

Then I though the error message is all about my IPOD is stopping me from writing anything on the device and hence I reached for how to remove write protection from IPOD and I have found your link.

I just run your BAT file and then edit the DWORD value as per your instruction. Then I re-connected my IPOD and it get re-formated without any hitch.

Thanks a lot for sharing such beautiful information.

You are the MAN of moments :)

cheers,

Kunal

Note : Guys if you don’t able to utilize the information then I will recomended you to learn about registry by googling it.

The thread creator has tried his best through the forum. Its on us to have some background knowledge to fully utilized all the information mention here.

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amol gangane says, March 5th, 2009   

good job thanks alot !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

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waseed shakir says, March 5th, 2009   

hi i have done all the above procedure,but my usb still not formating
the message is “disk is write protected”
and other message is “formatting not completed”
plz solve my problem

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Abhinav Arya says, March 6th, 2009   

I’ve downloaded the batch file and added to registry and set the value to 0 also but problem is still not solved. My pen drive don’t have any write protection button, still it is showing this error.

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manoj says, March 7th, 2009   

pen drive 32 gb , when i am writing data on it in the middle of the process a message writing is not possible .the drive is write protected. i have tried it to format but there is also the same message. pls suggest me .

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ead says, March 14th, 2009   

I did everything and its still not working. My device doesn’t have a physical switch. I’ve tried to use DOS to “convert” and “format” and I get error messages. “device not ready, check that door isn’t open” I get a message something like that when I try to “convert” and when I try to “format” I get an error message that the second ntfs boot sector is unwriteable.. I tried to scan it for virus’s.. scan disk.. i am at a loss. how do i format this puppy into NTFS??? When I try to us HP disk converter it says that the drive is write protected. I’ve done everything on this web site. HELP

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carl says, March 20th, 2009   

i did that, but still same problem occur…pls help. thanks…

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io says, March 29th, 2009   

I managed to follow everything but the “write-protected” message still kept on showing. Help? my usb is a transcend JF V30/2GB. Thanks

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praveen says, April 6th, 2009   

my problem is solved thank u.

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vivek says, April 9th, 2009   

I did everything and its still not working.my problem is The disk is write protected. Remove the write protection or use another disk.

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diane says, April 13th, 2009   

My problem is solved
too! Thankz! godbLess!♥

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prateek says, April 15th, 2009   

thanks it worked in one go well done

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anusha says, April 27th, 2009   

Thank you soooooooooooo much!!!I thought my mmc was gone for good,your tips really helped

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John says, May 2nd, 2009   

i still cant solve the problem of write protection on my transcend 8gb pendrive.
how to fix?

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eduardo says, May 2nd, 2009   

i did everithing you said, but still did not work, thanks any way.

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aadil says, May 13th, 2009   

i am still having a problem because registery function is not avalable in start menu

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Sriman says, May 14th, 2009   

hi,
i done the same process, but i am unable to disable the write protection.

it is giving the error like ,

\Device\Harddisk1\DR5

What can i do , i am using transcand 8 gb pen drive ,

Kindly provide more information to me ….

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sagar says, May 20th, 2009   

Hi,
i tried the above steps correctly but my pendrive is still like that only …..
mine is 8Gb pendrive and it allows to copy upto 1.81Gb data after that it shows that your pendrive is write protected…
Please help me to solve this problem..

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vijay says, May 24th, 2009   

hai ,

its very dificult to remove the write protect on pen drive even after the did the all steps. still its shows the error
any one can help me. thanxs in advance

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faisal says, May 26th, 2009   

I’ve downloaded the batch file and added to registry and set the value to 0 also but problem is still not solved. My pen drive don’t have any write protection button, still it is showing this error.

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Shalini says, June 1st, 2009   

I’ve downloaded the batch file and added to registry and set the value to 0 also but problem is still not solved. unable to write any of the usb drive.

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2 Free Tools To Make Removable Drive Read Only says, June 10th, 2009   

[...] Read Also: Remove Write Protection On USB Pen Drive or Memory Card or iPod  [...]

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HiTmAn23 says, June 16th, 2009   

I’M USING VISTA
AND IT DOSN’T LET ME
SAVE THE FILE

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Ken Du says, June 20th, 2009   

Hi,
Thank you for ur post, but i still get trouble after trying both methods. First, My USB got “write protection” fault, after solving, it turned out to be “plz insert disk” and i cannot access my USB. :( ( :( (. Plz help me!!!

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AuGuS says, June 24th, 2009   

I tried all the above said methods..
but no improvement..
can any one solve my problem…
plz help……..

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Vipin says, June 26th, 2009   

hEy..it worked ..thanks alot dude..n ya one more thing ..restrt aint compulsory …newyz…thanks aton..

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marx says, June 29th, 2009   

Hi bro. Thank you so much. It worked. Excellent! Keep it up..

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AmRolMuStaFa says, July 5th, 2009   

very very nice…

original ;)

thx alot..:)

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Qasim says, July 14th, 2009   

i have tried evry thing bt the problem is same i can’t copy or format my
4 GB Kingston drive. When it is plug in the error comes
” The disk can not be written to because it is write protected. Please remove the write protection from the volume in drive\Device\Harddisk1\DR13

plz help me out

Hunter-87@live.com

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S.M.SuniL says, July 14th, 2009   

ITz working for me ….thx a lot dude…..

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lucky says, July 17th, 2009   

thanks bro for help me in remove write protection error of my pen drive …….lot of thanks onece again

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Rohit Verma says, July 21st, 2009   

Thanks : )

It saved my GBs of data.

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tarzanbappa says, July 25th, 2009   

This was a very useful option.
***************It works*******

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vinay KS says, July 28th, 2009   

hi,
I have a similar problem with a transcend 2GB pendrive which suddenly has become in accessible just as the discussion in here goes.I tried everything you said and on the internet.
I even downloaded the format utility from transcendusa.com neither ur suggested apache format utility is detecting the drive..though windows does. Moreover the drive can be formatted in safemode so the pendrive is definitely undamaged right… and I have changed the registry values aswell.
Please help me reincarnate my pendrive by suggesting a working solution. Is there any antivirus which can remove the virus from the pendrive?

Thankyou.. :)

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Himanshu says, July 30th, 2009   

i have tried all you given tricks

but it’s useless i have Transcend 8GB

pendrive please reply me soon…..

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HARDIK says, July 31st, 2009   

hello sir i tried both the methods but none of them is working with my pen drive its still say pen drive is write protected.please help me.

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kartik says, July 31st, 2009   

buddy still i m having same problem while i had used both process

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Blitz says, August 15th, 2009   

OMG i did all your methods and it still says write protected. It’s a mini sd card in a usd card.

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Gampo_PR says, August 15th, 2009   

i did all you said and this bullshit is having the same fucking problem :(

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csemohan says, August 20th, 2009   

thank u very much……………..
it is helpful to meeeeeeeeeeee

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Vipul says, August 24th, 2009   

thanks buddy..!!!

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rahul says, August 27th, 2009   

tanx dude a lot,u saved my usb.

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afreen says, September 1st, 2009   

my ipod has 1 gb memory but its feeding upto only 120mb as am trying to feed more than tat its gving error that the disk is write protected. plzz gv me the solution for that….
PLZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ

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Amna Khan says, September 7th, 2009   

i brought a 2GB MicroSD card with its adaptor, when i inserted the card into the phone and tried to open the files in it, it said “Error, Try Again”. so i put it in the adaptor and inserted into my digital camera and formatted it. after that it was taking pictures but after i’d imported the pictures from the memory card and i tried deleting them off it it said “Memory card write-protected, Remove write-protection or use another disk”. so its letting me take pictures but it won’t open in my phone and it won’t let me transfer any wallpapers, music or ring tones to itself! help me what shall i do! reply quickly please!

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Naveen Chauhan says, September 13th, 2009   

I’ve downloaded the batch file and added to registry and set the value to 0 also but problem is still not solved. My memory card don’t have any write protection button, still it is showing this error.pls give any other solution and any other software is there for this porblem.

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Pakhi says, September 13th, 2009   

This is awesome. I just read it and then got the help instantly. Nice job trouble fixers.

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vikas says, September 15th, 2009   

still i have problem of write protected.
I have done all of the above procedure which you suggest

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A says, September 25th, 2009   

Thaaaaaaaaaanks lot…………………………..

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lol says, September 29th, 2009   

Tyhank you! You fixed my head-ache

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mohamed mosalem says, October 10th, 2009   

thank you very very very much my flash return again and i cant thank you

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Nikhil says, October 14th, 2009   

thnx

Nikhil

+91-9725836575
ntn_blue@yahoo.com

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Sree Harish says, October 14th, 2009   

Hi,

I tried all above and still facing the issue and my memory card still gives me an error message “The disk is write protected…….”. Please advice as i am finding it tough

Harish

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Glory says, October 15th, 2009   

Your hints were awesome. My memory card started working immediately. Thanks

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David F says, October 28th, 2009   

I was having trouble with formatting an 8gb sdhc micro card, I ended up using this program and it worked like a charm:

http://panasonic.jp/support/global/cs/sd/download/sd_formatter.html

good luck!

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gaban says, November 3rd, 2009   

hai…thank u very much for the solution about write protected remover….thank a lot…yeah!!!

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